Hey there!

It is stress awareness day.

Cue the band, right?

Let me guess, you are already out celebrating.

I’m kind of torn here, obsessed as I am with seeing 2 sides to everything.

I want to chat with you briefly about stress because it is an important topic, but…. I don’t want to stress you out by doing so.

Since I am a psychologist specializing in helping people with family and relationships (that may be how we got to know each other) and family and relationships are two of the five factors most often cited as a source of stress, I believe it is important I share something helpful.

Pertinent fact:

The way we experience stress impacts whether stress will help us or hurt us.

A massive study found that when people were feeling they were stressed out + also believed that feeling stressed out would be harmful to their health, they had a 43% increase in the risk of premature death.

But get this:

Those who experienced high stress but didn’t believe it to...

Family members are intensely connected emotionally.

 This connectedness can foster reactivity.

 As family members, we react not just to each other's behavior but to what we believe are each other's needs and  expectations.  We watch carefully, albeit mostly subconsciously, for changes in each other’s behavior. We do so in order to predict what will happen next, based upon past experience.

The family members watching another’s behavior will react in what they believe will be reciprocal to the action they are predicting is about to occur.  Around it goes, a change in one person's behavior or functioning will lead to a reciprocal change in the functioning of others.

It's impossible not to be impacted by other members of the family system, even if we are separated, especially if we are still parenting, because family members are emotionally interdependent on each other to some degree.

This emotional interdependence is a human characteristic of...

 Can I hear an amen?!?

Our hardest seasons make us the people we are meant to be. That can be hard to hold onto when going through divorce.

 Let’s talk about Divorce.

  It's a hard word to say.

One of my clients went an entire year before she told anyone she worked with that she was divorced. Our culture attaches shame to the word divorce.  Our culture attaches failure to the word divorce.

Women are more likely to accept blame for the end of the marriage. There are social and cultural forces guiding her to do so. Women tend to assume emotional responsibility for the success of the marriage and parenting, and are therefore more likely to personalize the marriage ending and experience greater feelings of guilt and shame about divorce and parenting. These feelings of guilt and shame can last long after the marriage ends as can the feelings of devastation.

No matter what stage of divorce you are in, divorce can feel like an emotional wrecking ball hitting you in the gut with each swing. 

But the ending of a marriage in divorce, also creates a clearing for new growth. 

I’m...

Remember the person you were before you ever met your partner and long before you became a couple? That person is still in there and when going through divorce we you need that self more than ever. 

In my divorce recovery work, I hear again and again "I don't even know who I am anymore!" Clients relate that their connection to self feels distant or lost.

WHO AM I AFTER 20 YEARS OF BEING SOMEONE'S PARTNER?

 

"As I tended to the ending and the rituals for closure, I asked myself who is left? Am I alone good enough, worthy enough to be a mother to my three children? "

Divorce from a partner can feel like a divorce from our selves, particularly if we lost our unique sense of self in the marriage.

This loss of self becomes even more acute if the divorce process activates in overdrive our inner critic.   Our culture rewards chronically self-evaluative human beings. Wanting to learn, grow and change is healthy and a form of resilience.  The paradox is...

You may think the terms self-esteem and self-love refer to the same thing .Self-esteem and self-love build on each other but are critically different. Awareness of the way these elements differ provides critical insights. Self esteem and self love influence each other.

 Self-esteem:

Self-esteem refers to our level of feelings of accomplishment, success, and self-respect.  Building self-esteem involves listening to the inner talk inside of ourselves.  That inner talk is tied to our self-esteem and performance. Self-esteem influences inner dialogue which influences performance.

The way we build confidence in our skills and know ourselves to be capable.

Examples of expressions of self-esteem:

"I'm a good mom."

"I'm great at handling the crunch of tax season."

"I'm a a protective dad".

Some people are extremely high functioning and have high self esteem, but they have little self-love.

I practiced law with a colleague who was a mentor of mine.   She was an...

Communication and negotiation with a nightmare of a coparent seems impossible. It's not! The science behind conflict resolution techniques will keep you calm, cool, courageous, and confident as you steer the healthy course for yourself and your children.

Lilly and Mark have an agreement where they share custody and alternate week-ends of their daughter Sally.  Mark is scheduled to have parenting time with Sally on an upcoming week-end beginning Friday. On Thursday evening, Mark calls Lilly to say that he has just been invited snowboarding and tells Lilly they will have to switch week-ends.  He will take Sally the next week-end and Lilly will keep Sally this weekend. Mark needs to know now that Lilly will alternate week-ends.

 Lilly has plans for this week-end and does not want to switch last minute.

 Mark remembers that in the mediator's office 6 months earlier, Lilly had said she would agree to alternate week-ends if conflicts came up. However,...

My clients going through or recovering from divorce tell me they can't imagine ever trusting again.

I understand.

Betrayal is ravaging. 

Grieving precedes healing.

Still, I promise them, and I promise you, blanket mistrust may be a mistake.

Living a life without vulnerability and trust will feel protective, at first, and terribly isolating and lonely later.

Our well-being is up to us.

One day, a part of you, the part that knows that life and growth can only thrive within relationships, will tiptoe into your mind with its quiet whisper and ask you, with some trepidation, to make the choice to trust another.

You may or may not be ready.

Either way, you are ready to take the step that is preliminary to trusting others.  That step is to rekindle trust in yourself.

You may be thinking,

"How can I do that after the absolute miserable mess I made getting into and struggling to get out of my past relationship?" 

Dear soul, maybe you made a mistake, as all humans do.

Or...